Big Train: Small Train

One of my more bizarre set-piece rambles when I'm bored revolves around musing aloud about what our world would be like if there was no such thing as scale drawing. What would maps be like? I guess the answer would be "Big. Very, very big."

Globes would be downright irresponsible, I suppose.

This vapid nonsense constitutes the flimsy excuse I require to post one of my favourite Big Train sketches: the one about the minister who can't grasp scale. A work of pure genius.

Enjoy.

Stevie Wonder - Play Loud

Oooh, Stevie Wonder. The godlike Stevie Wonder. Absolutely imperious on Jonathan Ross's show the other night - but this must be the lad in his pomp.

What a guy - thanks to Sparkin for hunting this out.

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd

Can't beat a bit of Rick Astley. Ta to GBS

iTunes does a Last.fm. Sort of.

I've been a fan of last.fm for years now - not least because I do like the idea of parading my somewhat individual music taste. Now, finally, Apple bring their own offering as part of iTunes 8 - the modestly named Genius. For an overview of how it works and how the other players in the market are taking it, take a look at this piece from Wired.com.

All in all, I like it. The playlists are sensitive with the odd surprise, and I've re-discovered a few gems I'd completely lost in the morass of music I have.

However - is it really as clever as it makes out? Well, I tried it out on me. The next step up from vanity googling, I suppose. 

Nope. Nothing. Nada. Last.fm wins there. Still, in the great scheme of things, I am possibly the ultimate in minority tastes on iTunes. I've seen the sales figures. Let's just say the Lear Jet will have to wait until next week. So; not surprised there, to be honest.

However, there is a fly in the ointment. PC World tried the same stunt with a somewhat less-unknown band. I'll not spoil the surprise. 

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?

Click here to find out.

Goodbye, Tinsley Towers.

When I was a kid, my geographic frame of reference was resolutely set to the west and the south. As a family, we looked towards Nottingham, London, and later Birmingham. It was only when we got a newcomer to my junior school in 1973-4 that I looked north for the first time in my life.

Pierre, the said newcomer, formed a very close friendship with me - probably based on us being two of the geekiest children you could ever hope to meet and he tolerated my extremely accident-prone nature (two self-inflicted black eyes in a year, anybody?) and general wussiness very well. 

One day during a school holiday, he invited Michael Lappage and myself up to his old stamping ground (he'd moved from Rotherham), and so we went to Sheffield station for a leisurely few hours logging the locomotives of the Midland Region ("Ooh, look! Another class 45 "Peak"!") while his mum visited relatives in the area. Sure, it was sad, but hey: Pierre now likes Girls Aloud and I've taken up the ukulele.

Nothing changes, then. 

Anyway: getting to Sheffield Midland station necessitated traversing the Tinsley Viaduct, and the area it spanned was like nothing I had seen in my life. To one side, fire-belching, hell-hole steel mills, and, to the other, two of the most enormous cooling towers topping off the power station supplying the electricity for this Dantean nightmare. I don't mind admitting the sight scared me and impressed me all at once, and I suppose that marked the beginning of my ambivalent relationship with industrial Yorkshire that has lasted to this day, with me moving up here, moving away twice and coming back each time.

The steel mills have now mostly gone, and those few that remain have cleaned up their act.  A mammoth shopping centre covers the site now, and I don't know what scares me more: but the towers remained.

Until yesterday that is, when they were felled in a controlled explosion, and so my first link with South Yorkshire, dating back to when I was 9, has now gone.

Everything changes, then.

Watch the giants being felled here.

Swearing removed from kids' book

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Swearing removed from kids' book: "In future editions, the offending word will be altered by one letter and replaced with 'twit'."

The mojo is slowly returning

I've been recording. At long last...

Wait For Me (acoustic)

Not a new song, but what the hey. It's a song that I always liked, and have performed at open mic nights on numerous occasions. It got more and more strung out each time I performed it, especially after one night in mid-January when I suddenly, on stage guessed correctly that my worst nightmare was happening while I was singing it.

But that's a story I keep to myself.

In the meantime, download, enjoy, and I'll try and get my arse in gear over the next few weeks and come up with something new: yes?

On the other hand...

I hope other people find this as hilarious as I do.

It doesn't do to take oneself too seriously.

Is age mellowing him?

"Of all the albums we've ever made, this album is the most... recent."
Noel Gallagher on BBC Radio 1 this morning. Quite the claim, Noelie.

"Funny old world" dept.

My, but there's some upfront people out there. Say it like it is, girl.

Make love, not dog toys

Here's an odd one. Russ Fielden, the tourism boss on Grenada, has asked dog owners to stop using starfish as dog toys.

Really.

Apparently, dog owners are using starfish as frisbees and chucking them for their dogs to catch. Then they leave the poor hapless quintapeds to die a painful death, and (apparently) the corpses smell something rotten. Not good.

Read the full story here.

Perdita

In autumn I see you

Stumbling at sight's edge;

Tiny one, mud-pie dirty.

Scuffed shoes.

Gritblack nails.

Faceless.

I turn and you vanish - 

A leafy shadow, 

A grainy dapple

That reminds me that, 

Although you died within,

You comfort me with your presence.

Haritini

., originally uploaded by corvidophile.

As self portraits go, not bad at all, girl.

It's more than a bit Man Ray.

Tethered

Tethered, originally uploaded by sp3ccylad.

Some people might view this rather odd image, snapped on the roof of Britannia Buildings in Huddersfield, as a metaphor. Not me.

Oooh, no.

The New Boris

Here's a turnup for the books. Boris can say what he bloody well likes for years, and the moment one of his advisers says the sort of thing he used to do, he's out.

This is just a bit weird for me. Guess he won't be saying "piccaninnies" any time soon.

Tile

Tile
Originally uploaded by sp3ccylad

This is why I take cameras into pub toilets.

Honest, your honour.

Lousy story, great soundbite.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Australia ire over chef's f-words: 

"Senator Bernardi claimed that one episode had contained 'the f-word' 80 times in 40 minutes.

'And I'm not referring to fondue,' he said"

Genius.

My wasted life?

If you'd told me back in June 2005 that by now I'd have spent five whole days listening to David Ford...

Have a play yourself - here.

My life, already?

Ah, but what a song. And what a video, too. That wallpaper. That shirt.

Genius.